[Editors Wanted] The Horror from Beyond

[Fr0sty]

While I didn't particularly want to post this out here (I wanted to make it a surprise), it's been suggested internally that this project could use some work. So, I'm putting this out in hopes some of you chaps might take a gander at it and help improve it. Warning: It's weird, but parts of it I firmly believe are the best writing I've done yet for a TiTS project.

The Horror from Beyond: https://docs.google.com/document/d/...dzOfdbFEf876FKWJI/edit#heading=h.5kghj0xlq1w4

In terms of writing, the project is done, but I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it and make polish it up. Feedback and assistance would be much appreciated.

 

[Xerox]

Damn dude, where was this two months ago? I really like it (even though I feel those sex scenes could definately support monopeds with a bit of tweaking.), and those ends are brutal

 

[Fr0sty]

Damn dude, where was this two months ago? I really like it (even though I feel those sex scenes could definately support monopeds with a bit of tweaking.), and those ends are brutal

Two months ago, I was in Destiny 2 so deep all hopes of productively were lost.

 

[flying_moustache]

So, I only skimmed through it but noticed something that I'd like to offer a suggestion on.

I'm a sucker for sexy Eldritch horror (as long as the horror is kept in moderation), but as eager as I am for this content thematically, I would never put that necklace on my PC.

a) Statwise it is just uninteresting to me. The accessory slot is precious and competition for it is fierce. Now, you would obviously need to confirm with the devs how far you can push its stats exactly, but I would suggest giving a major stat penalty and a good stat increase in exchange for that.
Thematically, I think a decrease in willpower and health would be appropriate to reflect the PCs deterioration in mind and body. To outweigh that, increase maybe shields to balance the health loss and/or sexiness and energy by a highish amount.
This is just a suggestion, but I would try something like:
Level 1: None
Level 2: -1 Willpower, -5 Health, +3 Shields, +1 Sexiness, +5 Energy
Level 3: -2 Willpower, -7 Health, +5 Shields, +1 Sexiness, +7 Energy
Level 4: -3 Willpower, -10 Health, +7 Shields, +2 Sexiness, +10 Energy
etc.

I think a double-edged sword approach would make it more intriguing statwise.

b)You kinda end up in a dead end with it. As long as you wear it you are sure to gain madness, which locks at 100. And then you are sure to get a bad at 100% probability? I can only speak for myself, but thats a major turnoff for me. Maybe do a check against the PCs willpower instead whenever a bad end is supposed to proc? That can tie in with the increasing loss of willpower (see point a) ) and increase the chance of a bad end occuring naturally as you level it up. I would keep the check easy enough that characters with high willpower can still 100% win the check though, as long as their willpower isn't lowered by other sources.
They'd need to be careful with that stat, but could still go on without annoyances.

Keep in mind, that these are just my thoughts. You don't need to do any of this if you don't want to.

 

[Lunaraia]

kinda agree with flying Moustache's point, also I am surprised you went with the madness and death approach and not the madness and "Fuck everything within sight" approach in the 2nd bad end, which would have been more fitting given the tone of this game, woulnd't even need to change much, seeing as instead of being dead they could just be busy either fucking each other of masturbating, not that I mind dark horror, but that particular bad end just seemed... off given the nature of the game and the earlier content that was presented, which seems to suggest we are dealing with something that would drive people into a maddened rutting/heat frenzy that would never end

 

[Alabaster Chimes]

@Fr0sty

You need to heavily rework the Motherhood Nightmare as, even as a dream, it crosses about 6 lines too far and MAYBE some other stuff, I'm note too sure (The your crew died smiling looking at you comes mind). Otherwise looks pretty good, ill give more opinions when im not tired as crap and have more time.

 

[Fr0sty]

So, I only skimmed through it but noticed something that I'd like to offer a suggestion on.

I'm a sucker for sexy Eldritch horror (as long as the horror is kept in moderation), but as eager as I am for this content thematically, I would never put that necklace on my PC.

a) Statwise it is just uninteresting to me.

b)You kinda end up in a dead end with it.

This was the second version of stat spread I had for the necklace. The first I was afraid was to overpowered, so I nerfed it into the ground to try and over compensate. Since I've never made an item before, I wasnt sure where a sort of sweet middle would be.

As for your second point, since madness decays when you're not wearing the necklace, you should never hit 100 unless you keep it on. Madness gets to high? Take it off for awhile and let it burn off.

kinda agree with flying Moustache's point, also I am surprised you went with the madness and death approach and not the madness and "Fuck everything within sight" approach in the 2nd bad end, which would have been more fitting given the tone of this game, woulnd't even need to change much, seeing as instead of being dead they could just be busy either fucking each other of masturbating, not that I mind dark horror, but that particular bad end just seemed... off given the nature of the game and the earlier content that was presented, which seems to suggest we are dealing with something that would drive people into a maddened rutting/heat frenzy that would never end

I'm highly considering changing it to a sex crazed thing instead of a dead thing. So the next time you look at the doc it might be switched around a bit.

You need to heavily rework the Motherhood Nightmare as, even as a dream, it crosses about 6 lines too far and MAYBE some other stuff, I'm note too sure (The your crew died smiling looking at you comes mind). Otherwise looks pretty good, ill give more opinions when im not tired as crap and have more time.[/USER]

I think I'll remove the blood from the mother scene, but other than that I don't see a problem with it. It's all metaphor, and not literal. As for the crew thing, I might tweak that into a sex crazed thing instead to keep the tone from getting TO dark.

 

[Damiekinz]

It's not poorly written, but It seems reaaaaaalllyyy off in terms of the tone of the game. TiTS can get dark at times but it's always mainly smut. There isn't anything sexy about the nightmares or the endings. Even the Kashima incident and other super borderline things are very focused on the sexual aspect for the most part, and those are a huge turn-off for a lot of people. I don't know, it's obviously not my decision, but it seems like the undertones are much too dark.

 

[gena138]

I really like this overall, but I have doubts about it getting in because I'm not sure that it doesn't break TiTS' "No actual magic" and "No actual gods" rules

 

[Fr0sty]

I really like this overall, but I have doubts about it getting in because I'm not sure that it doesn't break TiTS' "No actual magic" and "No actual gods" rules

The entity in the doc is of the same origin as a being already in TiTS: The Seer. With her as precedent, and the fact it's really just a powerful alien from another dimension with psionic powers, the whole "gods and magic" thing shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Gardeford]

I'm gonna be frank. While this is much better than tessa as far as making the pc seem like a dunce and having weird consistency issues, its still rough. The necklace seems like a blatant excuse to not develop the servant, and to just be able to convieniently cut off any attempt to have depth in the talk scenes. there's a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, with most talk scenes ending with important questions just being cut off by plot devices to keep the god mysterious. In her talk about herself she just straight up doesn't answer the question about her madness, and the pc doesn't even bat an eye. shes just like "as for the latter it cost me dearly" which doesnt answer anything. Most edits at this stage would result in the submission not actually being yours, but the people who edited it, by the time they were implemented. I feel like you are improving, but as is i don't feel this submission has a place in the game. We already have a couple things similar to this between the seer and the kashima incident, and this one doesn't add anything new enough to stand on in my opinion apart from being about death and having a game altering item attached to it. Changing it to being about sex would be an improvement, but the current issues still stand.

 

[GothPastel]

Yeah, okay dude this needs a serious grammar edit, but after skim reading this and having a proper look at the bad ends? I don't think it has a snowball in hell's chance, so I'm not wasting my time.
The character is pretty much a direct copy of the Seer, with a few details changed. I get that she's supposedly from the same 'lore' - not that this really seems to fit in with SoAndSo's stuff - but she should still be unique and stand on her own. Some of her sex scenes even read like poorly reworded versions of the Seer's.
Aside from that, it really misses the point of the game. It's not sexy. The bad ends are just disturbing. I know that not every bad end needs to be full of sex, but most of the ones that arent have the decency to kill the PC w/in only a few lines of text. But you didn't do that. You wrote paragraphs of the PC being confined to a fucking mental hospital. The other one has the PC straight up kill someone.
You also say this thing is an alien, not an actual god. This isn't explained ANYWHERE in the text. You could say that the Seer doesn't either, but she doesn't need to: she doesn't go bad ending the PC by turning them into some kind of eldritch abomination, or handing out (overpowered) accessories.
The PC has less of a case of chronic dumbass than they did in Tessa's content, but it's still there. They remark that it seems like the Servant's on basically all the drugs on the first meeting... And proceed to not bat an eyelid, giving no option to get someone to help her.
Speaking of Tessa, that brings me to my final point. It's unnecessarily edgy. Yes, sure the game can get dark at times - but it's generally when paying closer attention, or stuff you actually have to work to find... Not something the PC can theoretically walk in on at level 1 with no warning.
Overall, I don't think editing's going to cut it. This needs completely reworked.

 

[ChromaTaphore]

Love the eldritch part, love the necklace, the rest needs to be a bit reworked to make it better fit the tone of the game.

 

[Gardeford]

Also it seems like your editing still consists of only fixing things when people directly edit new words in, and not actually changing anything yourself. Seriously dude, at this point its hard to not sound mean when i say just resolving issues without saying anything and ignoring them when they're valid issues is a really bad way to go about things. Tessa got in because she was something unique, despite her downfalls. As is, this is just a powerful item with some dry fluff attached.

 

[Fr0sty]

Also it seems like your editing still consists of only fixing things when people directly edit new words in, and not actually changing anything yourself. Seriously dude, at this point its hard to not sound mean when i say just resolving issues without saying anything and ignoring them when they're valid issues is a really bad way to go about things. Tessa got in because she was something unique, despite her downfalls. As is, this is just a powerful item with some dry fluff attached.

Not really, I've revised quite a bit on my own already. As it stands now, I'm adjusting what I can while stewing over what needs to go. I've resigned that I'm going to need to rethink a few aspects, especially surrounding tone and the necklace. Over the next day or so, I'm going to go through line by line, tighten it up, and ponder what needs to go.

It's a work in progress.

 

[Gardeford]

While you're making the bad ends sexy instead of murderous you should probably do the same with the nightmares. As is they're either gruesome or just random toss ins of your creative writing.

 

[Fr0sty]

While you're making the bad ends sexy instead of murderous you should probably do the same with the nightmares. As is they're either gruesome or just random toss ins of your creative writing.

The thing about the nightmares is they're a story. Essentially, I'm trying to show history, rather then telling it, delivering the exposition through a different form of narrative. That said, I am going to still tweak them up more as part of my effort to shift the tone, cut one of them completely, and replacing the cut one with a new one that will be sexy is some measure or another.

 

[Gardeford]

The thing about the nightmares is they're a story. Essentially, I'm trying to show history, rather then telling it, delivering the exposition through a different form of narrative. That said, I am going to still tweak them up more as part of my effort to shift the tone, cut one of them completely, and replacing the cut one with a new one that will be sexy is some measure or another.

If stories of that variety are going to get in at all, they should be told by someone you can have sex or a friendly relationship with. This is a sex game and any non sex content should be directly involved with or enhance a character who you can have sex or a relationship with. None of these do that.

 

[Fr0sty]

If stories of that variety are going to get in at all, they should be told by someone you can have sex or a friendly relationship with. This is a sex game and any non sex content should be directly involved with or enhance a character who you can have sex or a relationship with. None of these do that.

Gonna have to strongly disagree with you on your last point. Two of the sex scenes are "technically" threeways between you, The Servant, and the Entity (who is acting through you or The Servant). So you're definitely having sex "with" it. Without explaining the meaning of the nightmares, which defeats the point as isn't encouraged when writing is a pseudo lovecraftian style, they are the history of the Entity. You're basically learning about the thing, from the thing, via symbolism.

Like I said before, I'm gonna cut one of them soon, and replace it with a nightmare that features The Servant more and will help fill the sexy quota.

 

[Linarahn]

This is a sex game and any non sex content should be directly involved with or enhance a character who you can have sex or a relationship with.

While it's impossible to deny that this is a sex game, I'm not so sure about the latter half of your statement, for one simple reason: It's also an RPG. An RPG that happens to revolve around sex. There's characters without sex scenes (willingly or because there's no content for them yet), characters that aren't interested in Steele for one reason or another (like Ramis with feminine PCs for instance) and so the sexual aspect quickly becomes situational. Not even a friendly relationship is mandatory (Akane is a good example here).
I hold that if it helps the scene or string of scenes come to life, leaving out sex is perfectly fine in the broader RPG context TiTS is placed in. It certainly doesn't help, however, that the game's tone is all over the place as is.

This is just my opinion, of course and I certainly understand that for many, the porn aspect is the main appeal and main drive to produce content. You're not suggesting something like a mandatory minimum for smutty scenes though and that's just me reading too deep into it, yes?

 

[Damiekinz]

While it's impossible to deny that this is a sex game, I'm not so sure about the latter half of your statement, for one simple reason: It's also an RPG. An RPG that happens to revolve around sex. There's characters without sex scenes (willingly or because there's no content for them yet), characters that aren't interested in Steele for one reason or another (like Ramis with feminine PCs for instance) and so the sexual aspect quickly becomes situational. Not even a friendly relationship is mandatory (Akane is a good example here).
I hold that if it helps the scene or string of scenes come to life, leaving out sex is perfectly fine in the broader RPG context TiTS is placed in. It certainly doesn't help, however, that the game's tone is all over the place as is.

This is just my opinion, of course and I certainly understand that for many, the porn aspect is the main appeal and main drive to produce content. You're not suggesting something like a mandatory minimum for smutty scenes though and that's just me reading too deep into it, yes?

I can certainly agree with this, but Fen has repeatedly said that I should cut characters with no direct sexual content from projects that include multiple characters unless they're absolutely necessary. So it's really up to interpretation. That said, I don't think Fen will accept this as-is.

 

[Thebiologist]

I'm not a big fan of horror stories, but there's just one exception, stories with these types of creatures, unfathomable horrors from beyond that corrupt the mind and the soul.

Anyone can pick up a knife and be a slasher. Anyone with supernatural powers can go on a killing spree, but that's boring.

Creatures like these, they are the best. They don't go around killing everything in their wake because they don't want to, they could, but that's not their modus operandi.
They lure people, tempt them with knowledge, power and then, they corrupt them, twist their minds, their souls, sometimes their bodies and spread fear, distrust, paranoia, then make people kill each-other or themselves. That is the ultimate horror monster, but they are very hard to write.
They are not vague. They can be mysterious, cryptic, but they don't withhold information, quite the opposite, they reveal hidden and forbidden knowledge, but there's always a price to pay. They are the ultimate pitcher plant for the curious and the skeptic.

The protagonists of those stories are always overly curious, they try to unravel the mystery, they keep going even when their instincts and common sense tell them to stop, and the further they go, the more their minds begin to erode, subtle at first until it evolves into paranoia and then, full on madness.

I love this kind of stories.Then again, stories like these are very hard to write. Plot development is usually very slow and the protagonists need to show they are too smart and too curious for their own good, while the creature pulls the strings from the shadows, slowly, subtly, dropping hints and revealing secrets one by one.

 

[Gardeford]

I'm not a big fan of horror stories, but there's just one exception, stories with these types of creatures, unfathomable horrors from beyond that corrupt the mind and the soul.

Anyone can pick up a knife and be a slasher. Anyone with supernatural powers can go on a killing spree, but that's boring.

Creatures like these, they are the best. They don't go around killing everything in their wake because they don't want to, they could, but that's not their modus operandi.
They lure people, tempt them with knowledge, power and then, they corrupt them, twist their minds, their souls, sometimes their bodies and spread fear, distrust, paranoia, then make people kill each-other or themselves. That is the ultimate horror monster, but they are very hard to write.
They are not vague. They can be mysterious, cryptic, but they don't withhold information, quite the opposite, they reveal hidden and forbidden knowledge, but there's always a price to pay. They are the ultimate pitcher plant for the curious and the skeptic.

The protagonists of those stories are always overly curious, they try to unravel the mystery, they keep going even when their instincts and common sense tell them to stop, and the further they go, the more their minds begin to erode, subtle at first until it evolves into paranoia and then, full on madness.

I love this kind of stories.Then again, stories like these are very hard to write. Plot development is usually very slow and the protagonists need to show they are too smart and too curious for their own good, while the creature pulls the strings from the shadows, slowly, subtly, dropping hints and revealing secrets one by one.

Fair, but the pc isnt a horror protagonist, and railroading them into acting in ways that could be percieved as stupid, or having them be duped too often by smarter enemies with no way of coming out on top results in backlash ala dr badger. The only way to win here is just take the necklace off till your madness drops, and thats not fun or engaging.

 

[Thebiologist]

Fair, but the pc isnt a horror protagonist, and railroading them into acting in ways that could be percieved as stupid, or having them be duped too often by smarter enemies with no way of coming out on top results in backlash ala dr badger. The only way to win here is just take the necklace off till your madness drops, and thats not fun or engaging.

That's why I said writing them can be very hard. Protagonists should be too smart and too curious for their own good, and willingly ignore common sense in pursuit of knowledge or power. This story does not fit that criteria.

In my opinion, I think madness should only increase when orgasming with the collar on (bonus if fucking the servant), sleeping with the collar on or talking to the servant with the collar on.
The higher the madness score, the higher the bonuses of the collar, but with a chance of bad ending if losing a fight against an enemy and failing a willpower check.
There should also be another option to delve for secrets, asking the servant about the nature of its master, the more you ask, the more it's revealed and the more your power grows, but at the cost of increased madness. That way, the PC is not railroaded, the PC is willingly engaging in the whole thing in exchange for knowledge, power and sex. There should be obvious warnings along the way, with intelligence and willpower checks.

 

[Gardeford]

That's why I said writing them can be very hard. Protagonists should be too smart and too curious for their own good, and willingly ignore common sense in pursuit of knowledge or power. This story does not fit that criteria.

In my opinion, I think madness should only increase when orgasming with the collar on (bonus if fucking the servant), sleeping with the collar on or talking to the servant with the collar on.
The higher the madness score, the higher the bonuses of the collar, but with a chance of bad ending if losing a fight against an enemy and failing a willpower check.
There should also be another option to delve for secrets, asking the servant about the nature of its master, the more you ask, the more it's revealed and the more your power grows, but at the cost of increased madness. That way, the PC is not railroaded, the PC is willingly engaging in the whole thing in exchange for knowledge, power and sex. There should be obvious warnings along the way, with intelligence and willpower checks.

I would fully support more actual info coming through the servant. I feel like that would be more satisfying than the current trend of having the necklace pulse whenever anything's about to be said.

 

[Braid]

You need to go back and change the whole basis of the story your trying to tell, give it a few weeks or months, build up your lore, history and race, it feels more like an abusive voyeurism experience rather than horror, there's no story, no background, and your character has nothing interesting going on besides the fact that she has decent tentacle bondage sex

psionics doesn't explain tentacle growth, your alien feels more Eldritch, and straight up looks down on people who have bodies, making it very much a god like being

There's no "happy" ending here, it makes steel seem weak minded, willed, and nothing more than a pawn, which should be given to a submissive role, not a master like you're trying to write, the fact the necklace goes to 100 and you're then stuck is shitty design, that means if I'm not careful and I save at 100 there's no way to revert it so I'm stuck on planet unless I save edit, ruining a save file

There's no way to choose to turn the tables or accept the power ala COC demon corruption and making the servant truly yours

Your Nice, Naughty, and Hard personalities write more like extremes, nice is a virgin, hard is a cuc and naughty is so try hard it's a wonder how they even get a date

Miranda feels like a blank slate goth, her sex scenes play out like a person who thinks they've seen a master and servant relationship rather than an actual one, and all the head jerking felt really unnatural and abusive, her talk scenes are boring, there's no character, someone doesn't need to talk much to convey emotion or interesting dialogue, look at Brandy for an example, and the sex besides the necklace one is vanilla and boring

And lastly, the dreams are boring, weird and just a bad taste and feel skippable, they don't do anything and don't give steel really any incentive of power, sex, or accomplishments as incentives to continue wearing the necklace or a give and take system as higher madness gives more unique lust or psionic skills and buffs but lower intelegence

It's an idea, and I want it to succeed, we need more tentacle scenes in the game and I'm down for 7-10 tentadicks being shoved into someone, but either pass it on or go back and redo everything

 

[Fr0sty]

Took a month away from this project, and recently got back to it. Anyways, lots of changes and reworks. I cut about 10 pages of content outright, trying to edge it away from being to "weird" and make it less beholden to it's genre inspiration. About half of the uncut content was revised to fit a new narrative, but the bones of the project are more or less the same, albeit with the gameplay aspects cut.

To many changes to really list, but if you're curious you can take a look.

 

[Braid]

So, dunno how you did this but you took something that had potential, and just turned it upside down and just made it the most boring "I just want to fuck" story possible with this set up, you didn't fix the problems that it had, and instead stripped it of anything that had potential to make it interesting

The servant is now just a boring blank slate that has no real character, instead of building onto her and making her character more likeable and invested she just tossed herself to you and the name introduction just feels blatantly "well they didn't like that I hid her name so here it is" instead of trying to go full 110% with the mystery and try to build up a character that has trust issues, damage, and a character Arc and someone to be invested into

The stone now isn't a tool or a portal, and is instead just the body of this other worldly being, which is boring, it leaves nothing to be desired or interested in, and is still this weird Eldritch God based being that you have zero lore for and "hey tentacles from psychic powers because!"

There really was potential in the first rough draft, getting rid of the weird abusive head snapping, make the other thing something organic, hell, make it another world version of steel that used mods to turn into a matter absorbing hive mind being that is trying to use this universes steel as a physical harmonic portal by creating a device that is meant to change the players mental and physical aspects to slowly match it's, and the influence of this device affected the servant to where she is now internally able to contain that steels offspring till they can multiply and invade this world, we already saw how badger was able to make penny link to her alternate selves to satisfy the energy need for a bimbo in that story Arc so lore wise it works

This was just torn down and made an empty shell of what it was and could have been imo and it's quite sad